Thursday, July 30th, 2009
Since we started this web site, hoping for some kind of investigation in to the feasibility of our program taking that next step. Today we will get that answer.
It won’t be definitive, it won’t be perfect, but it will give us quite a grip on where we stand. Whatever comes of this, it’s been a fun ride and you guys have been vital in making this happen.
More importantly is to see how this all plays out from the top, most of us are hoping that Sam Baker uses this very important tool to his advantage.
Will he actively have the newest addition to the Boosters involved in marketing this study? Will there be a fund-raiser built around it? Marketing? Expansion ideas?
Or will we be disappointed seeing this only as an announcement of receipt of a document and a simple explanation of what’s inside it?
Stay tuned at GSUFans.com for the news.
Friday, January 2nd, 2009
As many of you know, I’m all for Georgia Southern stepping up into the FBS division in football IF we can realistically afford to do it, and IF Sun Belt Conference will accept us as a full member. Regardless of what you think, we don’t have many (if any) options of a FBS conference other than the Sun Belt.
But before we go jumping into the deep end without taking swimming lessons we need to take a look at where we currently stand in comparison to current FBS institutions, and also we we currently compare against other leading FCS schools. I’ve put together comparisons of athletic department budgets, football budgets, school enrollments and football home game attendance.
I think you’ll see we have the undergraduate size to move up and we are well on our way to having the attendance. Attendance should not be a problem if we build more seats in Paulson and field teams that put butts in seats every Saturday afternoon.
When you look at the budgets, you’ll see we will need to at least DOUBLE OR TRIPLE our overall athletic budget and probably increase our football budget by 300-to-400%. This is going to take a combination of increased student fees, increased numbers of season tickets and increased ticket prices, and a whole lot of new boosters contributing to our athletic program. Run the numbers yourself and try to come up with your own plan of funding the increases we’ll need to be one of the “Top Three” budgets in the Sun Belt, CUSA or WAC.
Don’t be too discouraged with what you see, because we’ve faced bigger obstacles and come out victorious before. Here’s the numbers I found and put together.
http://www.gata.com/gsuversuscompetition.pdf
To reach the next level of funding for our Eagles, there are several methods of increasing revenues that will have to take place to increase our current $9.115M budget to a competitive level in a FBS conference. Here is my scenario of how we can accomplish this.
Student Fee Increases – $1.875M
Based on 15,000 undergraduates averaging 2.5 semesters each year (7,500 enrolled during summer), an increase of $50 per semester in the student athletic fee would net $1,875,000 per year.
Southern Boosters Increased Giving – $1M
Adding 2,000 new contributors at $500 cash for each contributor would net a $1,000,000 per year. This will take a lot of work to reach our alumni and fans, but it can be done. This figure will rise above $1M over the years.
Football Season Ticket Increases – $600K
The 2,000 new contributors to Boosters will buy 2.5 season tickets per account (average family size) at a cost of $120 per season ticket. This would net $600,000 per year. The question is, “where will 5,000 new $500 seats be located?”
Football Single Game Ticket Increases – $240K
With all the added interest in FBS football, we can expect more walk-up ticket sales on game days. 2,000 additional fans buying single game tickets would net $240,000 per year. Again the question arises, “where will these newly-converted Eagles fans sit?”
Auxiliary Services Absorbs Fees – $2.5M
As in the case with many schools, meals and rooms are absorbed by the university. Being that AuxServices does not operate with “state money” and is not restricted by state laws that say “no state tax dollars for athletics”, our University could have AuxServices absorb the costs currently being paid by Athletics for meals and rooms for our student-athletes. This could be done now if our President decided to take the initiative and simply “do it”! Freeing the athletic budget from these costs would net around $2,500,000 per year.
Playing One Football “Money Game” Per Season – $750K
Once we are a FBS member, we will be able to receive a minimum of $750,000 per game for playing a BSC team at their home stadium. These prices have escalated dramatically over the past five years with some SBC, CUSA & WAC programs receiving over $900K for a guarantee. One of these games would net a minimum of $750,000 per year.
Increased Marketing Sponsorships – $250K
With increased exposure in FCS, a higher-profile conference, more butts in seats for home games, and more regional/national exposure on television, we will have additional opportunities for corporate sponsorships. Taking advantage of these opportunities would net us a minimum of$250,000 per year.
So far, this scenario nets Georgia Southern Athletics an additional $7.215M per year, but much of this growth is based on finding seats for the extra fans 7,000 fans and 2,000 students we are counting on. As you all know, there is no way Paulson Stadium can absorb these addition numbers in her current configuration. We will need to add seats, lounges, private boxes, end zone seating, upper decks, etc. to Our House BEFORE we start our efforts of attracting new paying customers. We can’t afford to bring new patrons into Our House and have them sit on the berms or stand . . . and then expect them to come back again and willingly hand us their money. We have to treat them as members of the family and give them comfortable seating and competitive football for their dollars.
New Club-Level Lounge (new “Eagle Club”) – $500K
Adding a 1,000 seat club level to the newly-constructed press box/club/private booth facility on the south side of Paulson would net $500,000 per year. It would also be a magnet for attracting some of the new boosters and season tickets we are counting on for our increases. Take a look at what Troy has done with their Trojan Club lounge; they sold out their club level seating at $500 per seat per season before construction started.
New Private Boxes (40) – $700K
Constructing 40 new private suites, each holding 16 patrons, would net $700,000 per year. These suites would lease for $17,500 per year on a five-year lease, and future pricing would be based on supply & demand.
Increased Merchandising, Concessions, Parking, etc. – $150K
Increase numbers attending games will put a stress on parking adjacent to Paulson Stadium and yearly parking fees will increase due to supply and demand. Expect parking to rise to $125 per year. Increased numbers at games will also lead to more lucrative concessions and merchandising contracts, most possibly from off-campus vendors (Aramark, Sodexho, etc.). These outside vendors and other fee increases would net $150,000 per year.
Spring Golf Blitz – $75K
Southern Boosters would conduct a Spring Golf Blitz across the southeast plus DC, holding golf tournament in fifteen cities featuring the Head Football Coach and prominent football lettermen. These tournaments will not only attract GSU alumni, but friends of our alumni that simply enjoy playing in golf outings. We would secure a corporate partner for these outings and set a goal of $5000 profit per outing. This would net $75,000 per year and would also allow us to generate significant interest and enthusiasm for our program outside of southeast Georgia.
These additional revenue sources would net us $1.425M per year, giving us a total of $8.64M in increased revenue for our annual athletic budget. We’ll have a more expenses due to a new conference being more geographically wide-spread, expenses related to bond payments for retiring stadium construction costs, and increased sport program budget for recruiting, etc.
But, taking our existing budget of $9.115M and adding the expected $8.640M will give us an expected budget of $17.755 in current dollars. This budget would put GSU at #2 within the Sun Belt Conference, 11th of 12 in Conference USA, and 6th of 9 in the WAC.
I do want to say that sitting down and coming up with these numbers is a much easier task than actually going out and doing it, but the simple truth is we CAN increase our revenue if we all work together and dig deep. It will not be easy and there will many, many bumps along the way. We probably won’t be successful in most of our sports initially due to the increased levels of competition we will be facing, but if we look on this as an eight to ten year project, then success will eventually come our way.
A couple of options that I intentionally did not include in this scenario is for current boosters to increase their donations and increased ticket prices for football. We all know these will be necessary, but I wanted to run the numbers without these two options. Each of us that currently give to Southern Boosters should expect to increase our giving by 50-100% once the decision has been made for our Eagles to move up into FBS. We can also expect to see ticket prices to rise $5-$10 per seat for “priority” seating inside the 35-yard lines. It will be each of our duties to dig deep for our alma mater and make sure our move into the FBS is a success for future generations of Georgia Southern Eagles.
I also did not include any numbers from Capital Project donations which could offset many of the costs related to stadium construction and renovations.
If you don’t agree with the numbers, or if you come up with other methods of raising funds on a consistent annual basis, please feel free to chip in with suggestions.
Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008
Fellow SouthernFACTS supporters,
Back in March of 2007, many of us decided that the time for standing idly by had come and gone. By banding together in a grassroots effort, we were able to set and achieve our goal of convincing the University to pursue a FBS Feasibility study. Sometime next month, we will learn the results of that study and should be able to gauge where we stand in our pursuit of bringing better competition to Paulson Stadium.
Today we have launched our second grassroots effort in coordination with Southern Boosters and GSUFans.com – we are looking to raise money to endow ONE football scholarship.
Southern Boosters has set the cost of this endeavor at $50,000 and if we hope to add the 22 additional scholarships necessary to compete at the FBS/I-A level then we have to start gathering these funds now. We raised over $2,000 last time very quickly just out of a few donors to do some simple advertising – today we need you all to pitch in to directly help the football program ramp up for what’s next.
We ask that you visit SouthernFACTS.org and click on the ChipIn link on the right hand side. Send over whatever you can offer, $5, $10, $100, $1000 or more. The money will go directly to the Southern Boosters bank accounts and Dan O’Dowd and his crew will be able to give you credit for your donations just as if you had mailed the check in yourself.
So get your end of the year donations in and help us make a difference!
If you can’t give, then go out of your way and recruit a new booster to the program – have them ChipIn! – and make sure to let us know that you did so! Every little bit helps!
As an incentive to the largest donor during the month of December, I will personally mail you my last original copy of the coveted NCAA Drive to Dixie poster which celebrates Erk Russell’s undefeated 1989 national championship season. These originals have gone for over $500 on eBay and are great find for the GSU collector in your home.
So dig deep, and if you want to spread the word you can add a ChipIn widget to your sites by clicking this link.
Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008
Jake Hallman got a chance to talk with Dr. Grube in an article in the paper yesterday. Some interesting comments came out of the interview, the biggest of which was in regards to student fees.
Grube has no doubts that GSU will eventually enter the FBS, but said the university has to balance its checkbook while making the move. That means a lot of private financial support, not student fee money.
“There’s some room for movement on student fees. That would require students to be in support of that,” Grube said.
It’s good to see that we are getting closer to being on the same page, a modest increase in fees could net the University an additional $1M which is more than Southern Boosters has ever ponied up in a single year.
With that said, I personally think it must also be mandated that our Southern Boosters program be able to match any increase by students fees (if not set goals for even more than that). Additionally, we must be able to find donors and match them to projects specifically sought to facilitate the move up. I think that we now see that our officials are telling us that concessions have been made on every front … it’s now up to the study, our next leaders, and our boosters to carry the torch.
As Grube noted, “I can’t take a business plan that’s not real to the Board of Regents,” Grube said. “We need to do it right.”
And that’s all the I-A proponents ever wanted I believe, as Erk said often, “Do right.”
Here’s hoping our new leaders are willing to take on this challenge. It’d be awful nice to see our current leaders lend them a helping hand however.
Friday, November 7th, 2008
A new Sam’s Journal was posted and a couple of key notes from Pat & Sam came out.
1) A FBS survey will be going out to Boosters and alumni soon.
2) Open forum for faculty and staff: November 17th there’s an Open Forum scheduled for GSU faculty and staff with Rosser.
3) Open forum for students: Immediately following that forum on November 17th there will be another open forum specifically for GSU students with Rosser.
Sam also made a statement disagreeing with something in the paper written by Andy Geiger regarding moving up on something like an extra $2M to $3M. Sam suggested that he felt like that wasn’t enough.
Keep your eyes here or over at GSUFans.com for updates.
Tuesday, October 21st, 2008
Here’s a video from the latest Upon Further Revue show with Nate and Josh. Brooks Collier was able to attend as were a couple of my cohorts, probably around 50 people showed up. The weather was pretty dank and cold that morning, so that’s understandable. The tailgating lot wasn’t really jumping till around 1pm IMO.
The biggest things that came out of it were 1) we need more money 2) the kind of revenues we’re getting need to be looked at. The revenues they mentioned were 60% based on donations and game revenues while our budget is currently 35%. Now much of that is because of our supplementing it with student fees.
Hopefully there will be some things that show up in the report that give our administrators something to work towards. With 25,000 enrollment being on the near horizon we’ll be looking at conference affiliation sooner than we think.
Personally I’m with Nate on this currently, I just hope that we can finally get the answers that we seek and then we can see how our various administrative groups (Grube, Baker, and Mulherin) respond to reaching them.
The year 2010 is a long way away, but not so far that we can’t have our plans moving that way. I’m definitely excited to read more about what these guys are putting together for recommendations and such.
Friday, October 3rd, 2008
When: Saturday, October 18th, 2008 at 10am EST
Where: Nessmith-Lane Building (UPDATED!!!) (map link)
Why: To get involved in the feasibility study at Georgia Southern
Rosser International, the consulting firm that we’ve hired, is holding a Feasibility Study Forum on Saturday 10/18 at 10am at the Nessmith-Lane Building.
This event is open to the public and we need to have as many supporters as possible to show up!
PLAN YOUR DAY AROUND THIS EVENT!
With just a little press coming from the ADs office regarding the study, we need your help more than ever keeping an eye on this!
Take this opportunity before the BLUE OUT to show up and get involved! Don’t sit on the sidelines for this, your opinion is very valuable and very much needed.
SouthernFACTS.org will have a few friends and representatives there and will try our very best to keep you up to date on the study.
If you are following this issue and would like to get involved, SouthernFACTS.org would love to have your contributions to publish on the website. Please contact us to help out!
Tuesday, April 15th, 2008
Just a heads up, I’ve had three people inform me that a decision on the feasibility study vendor is supposed to be made soon (if it hasn’t already been made). Supposedly it is down to the final three with the final name to be announced soon. The firms named that I have heard so far were Carr Sports Associates, NACDA (more info), and C.H. Johnson Consulting. I don’t know if they’re the final three or just three of the firms bidding, sorry.
The suggested timeline for seeing the final report seems to fluctuate between Fall ‘08 and on the 1 year anniversary of the study announcement. Hopefully if it takes that long, we’re celebrating the national title when we see the results :)
I’m also completely apologetic for the lack of coverage lately … one I’ve been swamped at life, but two it’s always the slow season right now :P
I should have done better with basketball coverage for sure! :) Feel free to kick me if you can find me.
Tuesday, February 19th, 2008
In a long awaited move, Georgia Southern University has put up the first step in seeking to compete at the FBS / I-A level for the year 2011. The state of Georgia purchasing office posted this Bid Notice on Thursday. Here are the relevant dates:
Feb 14th: RFP posted.
Feb 20th: Deadline for vendor questions.
Feb 22nd: Answers to questions will be posted.
Mar 5th: Vendor conference will be held at the Hanner Athletic Complex at 1pm
March 18th: Proposals due.
April 8th: Contractor begins work.
The summary text of the bid reads:
Georgia Southern University is considering the advancement of its football program from NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) to NCAA Division I Football Bowl Championship (FBS) beginning with the 2011 season. To determine the feasibility of this reclassification, the President, Director of Athletics and the University’s constituents require certain facts that present a complete and valid framework for the official decision of the University. To reach this critical decision in a deliberate manner and take appropriate action, the University desires to contract with a consulting firm to conduct this feasibility study. The RFP consists of the following documents. Please be sure that you have opened and reviewed all documents to ensure responsiveness to the needs of the Department.
There will be 3 deliverables, the Feasibility Study (Phase I), the Market Assessment (Phase II) and the Strategic Plan (Phase III).
The full text of the document can be found archived here at SouthernFACTS.org in PDF format. The most relevant piece of the document is on page 9 where it describes the 3 phases of the proposal.
Wednesday, February 13th, 2008
The 2008 Legends of Georgia Southern Football Golf Outing to benefit the Erk Russell Football Endowment is scheduled for Friday, April 18, 2008 at Cobblestone Golf Course in Acworth, Georgia.
The Captain’s Choice format will tee off with a shotgun start at 9:00 a.m. The entry fee is $125.00 per player and all skill levels are welcomed. Hole sponsorship opportunities are also available.
This event is being organized and held by former Eagle football players in support of the Erk Russell Football Endowment at Georgia Southern University. All proceeds and contributions are going towards the EFAA’s goal of raising $50,000 for the Endowment.
The registration form as well as additional information and contact personnel is listed via this link.
How about teeing up one more time for Erk!
